Thursday, March 12, 2015

Vaslav Nijinsky –The last jump

Vaslav Nijinsky was born on March 12th 1890 in Kiev, Ukraine. He is known for his artistic genius and his flawless technique and stage
presence –but also for his turbulent personal life and his mental illness that
forced him to cut early his dancing course.

As a choreographer he created some of the most innovative and
controversial pieces of his time and brought ballet into modernism. As a dancer
he had the exceptional ability to transform himself into every role he
performed. In his technique, what stood out were his graceful, floating leaps that
defeated gravity. When asked about his secret, his answer was: 'You just have to
go up and pause there a little.'

Eugène Druet. Photograph of Nijinsky in the Danse
Siamoise in Les Orientales posed outside in Paris, 1910. Roger
Pryor Dodge Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts - source

Today, on his birth anniversary, we chose to share a lesser known story that occurred later in his
life, during his stay at the psychiatric asylum of Munsingen in Switzerland –the story of his
last jump.

On June 7th 1939, his wife Romola invited dancer and ballet
master of the Paris Opera Ballet Serge Lifar along with a group of journalists
and photographers. At that time, Nijinsky was mostly lost in his own mind with
seldom communication with his surroundings. The purpose of the visit was to
offer him some kind of dancing stimuli with the hope it would stir something
inside his mind.

During the visit, Lifar danced in front of Nijinsky excerpts of some of
his most famous roles –The Fawn and the Spectre de la Rose. Nijinsky observed
him unexpressed at first, he gradually started responding to Lifar’s dancing
and then suddenly he performed a spectacular vertical jump –floating in the air
for a while and then landing lightly, a jump worthy of his old fame…